This phrase resurfaces once in awhile, and always makes me giggle. While we’re all certain theologically that we should be able to live without the coffee, daily experience tells me each morning as I pour a cup, that it’s better with it!
It’s still dark outside when the cream begins to swirl into the dark and the familiar scent makes its way to my sleepy nose, kittens purring and wrapping around my legs as I make my way gingerly to the living room in the still darkness. For many years, this has been my ritual, a nearly-each-and-every-morning sight reserved for the slowly rising sun as he peeks into the window and the occasional early rising child as he or she peeks around the hallway corner. One of the little boys used to sometimes wake very early and climb up onto the couch to join me, whispering, “You doin’ your Bible tuddy, mama?” It was such a habit that every time he saw me with a book, he asked the same question—even if it were a cookbook on my knee!
Finding time to spend with God can be a challenge, can’t it? It certainly seems there aren’t enough hours in the day for all that must be done, and if we throw in all we’d like to do, we’re down to fleeting seconds left crammed around the edges.
Yet living life well calls for a dedication of our time to the things most important.
A precious group of ladies gathered at my house once again, last night. As we passed savory mushroom spinach tart and tangy Caesar salads around the table, we shared the highs and lows of our weeks apart. Everyone’s life is full to bursting, it seems, and we all shared of the struggles we find as we battle insecurities, endeavor to raise our children well, try to keep our households together, and also long to love God well in the midst of all of it.
We concluded that none of those things could actually happen unless we made time to center ourselves on God and His Word a major priority!
As Sally Clarkson says in chapter nine of Own Your Life,
“Own your faith. Take responsibility for the miracles God wants to do in and through your life. No one else can faithfully show the people He has entrusted into your care what it means to live by faith. No one else can accomplish the work He created you to do.”
That’s a big statement, isn’t it? God wants to do miracles in and through our lives. Will we be too busy to prepare for them? Will we live by faith, ourselves, that our children might know what that looks like?
“The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes- a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power.” ~ Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines
The heart of a hero begins in the secret place. Jesus waits to meet with each of us there, longing to pour His strength and wisdom into our hearts. Will we own our faith? Will we answer His call?
Blessings,
Misty
This post is part of the Better Mom Book Club, where right now we are reading Own Your Life by Sally Clarkson together. Click the image below to learn more, subscribe to exclusive Book Club Content and Join us in discussions on a private Facebook page with Better Mom Writers and the author about all that we are learning. We'd love to have you join us!
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